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Photo by COURTESY THREE SQUARED INC.
Leslie Horn's Detroit-based Three Squared Inc. plans to build a 20-unit condominium development at West Warren and Rosa Parks in Detroit, using steel shipping containers as building blocks.

A steel shipping container is built to withstand winds of more than 100 mph and hold about 20 tons of goods.

But Leslie Horn has a different vision for them — one that doesn't involve them bearing the force of the high seas or being transported across railroad tracks.

Horn, the CEO and founder of Detroit-based Three Squared Inc., sees the 20- and 40-foot-long reclaimed containers as the building blocks for single-family homes.

Her real estate development company plans a 26,000-square-foot, 20-unit condominium development built with 93 containers on the southeast corner of West Warren Avenue and Rosa Parks Boulevard, and another with up to 12 units and 16,000 square feet off Michigan Avenue between Brooklyn and Eighth streets.

Prices for the units have not yet been determined, but Horn said they will be "on the lower end" of the average $150- to $220-per-square-foot market rate for condominiums in the area.

The Rosa Parks Boulevard project, with one-, two- and three-bedroom units ranging from 853 square feet to 1,920 square feet, is budgeted at $3 million; the Michigan Avenue project, with one- and two-bedroom units ranging from 900 to 1,200 square feet, is budgeted at $1.5 million.

Three Squared CEO Leslie Horn

Three Squared buys the containers from an international company Horn said she could not identify.

With the exception of a $603,000 brownfield credit, the projects would be financed with proceeds from unit pre-sales, Horn said.

Currently based out of Horn's Detroit condo off Jefferson Avenue, Three Squared's eight full-time employees will move into half of a 4,400-square-foot shipping container building on the site of the Michigan Avenue development in February to start taking pre-sale applications for both projects.

Horn said the company has received $700,000 in startup funding from private investors in the last three years, with $450,000 of that coming in the last six months. She said 2014 profits from unit sales are projected to be $1.2 million.

Construction on the Rosa Parks project is expected to begin in May; Horn said residents will start moving in by November.

It's that construction speed and the durability of the containers that are key upsides to this type of development, she said. For example, the Michigan Avenue office will be framed in four hours and built out in less than 45 days, Horn said.

"It's kind of like Legos," she said. "It's like building blocks. You can be very creative. You can stack them 20 feet apart and go four-high and build a roof on top of them, or you can build just a little single house if you want. The only limitation is the limitation of the architect and designer."

Three Squared announced last week that it hired the architecture firm Eric Lloyd Wright & Associates. The Los Angeles-based firm is run by Eric Lloyd Wright, grandson of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Horn said Eric Lloyd Wright & Associates will design some of Three Squared's projects, while another contracted firm, Detroit-based Steven C. Flum Inc., will design others.

It's not just Three Squared using the reclaimed shipping containers in construction. Collision Works Inc. plans a $4 million, 36-room boutique hotel on a 1-acre site at 1923 Division St. between Orleans and St. Aubin streets near Detroit's Eastern Market.

Shel Kimen, founder of Collision Works, said the Detroit-based company is still trying to purchase the property from the city.

Kimen sees demand for shipping container residences in Detroit, but not an overwhelming amount.

"I wouldn't build like 20 condo developments, but I had many people come into the (model) containers throughout the summer and they wanted to do all kinds of things with them" such as art studios, "man caves" and apartments, Kimen said.

"It strikes me as a lot of compromises in space and design and everything else for what I'm not sure is enough savings in dollars," he said.

Horn, who first became interested in shipping container development after learning of its popularity in Europe about five years ago, understands not everyone will appreciate the concept.

"We are always going to have people who don't like it," she said. "There are people who think it's ugly, that we are ruining (the area), that it's not a beautiful thing. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and we can make it something that people will be very proud of."